saudi arabia

Saudi to behead Lebanese convicted of witchcraft: lawyer

Saudi Arabia is a country run by cavemen.

Saudi to behead Lebanese convicted of witchcraft: lawyer

A Lebanese man sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia on charges of witchcraft is due to be beheaded this week, his lawyer said on Wednesday, urging officials and rights groups to intervene on his behalf.”Last night we got news through unofficial channels that Ali Sabat would be beheaded within 48 hours,” May el-Khansa, Sabat’s attorney in Beirut told AFP.

“I have since been contacting Lebanese officials, including President Michel Sleiman and Lebanon’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia to appeal his case.”

Sabat was sentenced to death in November of last year by a Saudi court for practicing witchcraft.

He was arrested in May 2008 by the religious police in Medina, where he was on a pilgrimage before returning to his native Lebanon.

The case against him was brought after he gave advice and made predictions on Lebanese television.

Khansa said Lebanon’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia was in contact with Sabat and someone from the embassy had visited him on Wednesday in his jail cell.

“It is very important that we save the life of this one person,” she said. “He is not a criminal.”

She added that Sabat’s family was in shock and that his mother was seriously ill with doctors saying she could die anytime.

Rights groups have expressed concern about Sabat’s case and similar ones pending in Saudi Arabia and have accused Saudi courts of sanctioning a literal witch hunt by the religious police.

Saudi Arabia has no clear legal definition on the charge of witchcraft and judges are given discretionary power in determining what constitutes a crime and what sentence to impose.

In November 2007, Mustafa Ibrahim, an Egyptian working as a pharmacist in Saudi Arabia was beheaded after he was found guilty of sorcery.

TV Presenter Gets Death Sentence For ‘Sorcery’

This would be laughable if it wasn’t for the fact that they’re going to kill someone. Talk about a retarded religion; and Muslims wonder why their religion gets mocked so often.

TV presenter gets death sentence for ‘sorcery’

Amnesty International is calling on Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah to stop the execution of a Lebanese man sentenced to death for “sorcery.”In a statement released Thursday, the international rights group condemned the verdict and demanded the immediate release of Ali Hussain Sibat, former host of a popular call-in show that aired on Sheherazade, a Beirut based satellite TV channel.

According to his lawyer, Sibat, who is 48 and has five children, would predict the future on his show and give out advice to his audience.

The attorney, May El Khansa, who is in Lebanon, tells CNN her client was arrested by Saudi Arabia’s religious police (known as the Mutawa’een) and charged with sorcery while visiting the country in May 2008. Sibat was in Saudi Arabia to perform the Islamic religious pilgrimage known as Umra.

Sibat was then put on trial. In November 2009, a court in the Saudi city of Medina found Sibat guilty and sentenced him to death.

According to El Khansa, Sibat appealed the verdict. The case was taken up by the Court of Appeal in the Saudi city of Mecca on the grounds that the initial verdict was “premature.”

El Khansa tells CNN that the Mecca appeals court then sent the case back to the original court for reconsideration, stipulating that all charges made against Sibat needed to be verified and that he should be given a chance to repent.

On March 10, judges in Medina upheld their initial verdict, meaning Sibat is once again sentenced to be executed.

“The Medina court refused the sentence of the appeals court,” said El Khansa, adding her client will appeal the verdict once more.

Sibat’s wife, Samira Rahmoon told CNN she has not seen her husband and has no idea of his health.

“I haven’t seen my husband in two years. I don’t know if he’s eating. I don’t know if he’s healthy. I don’t know how he looks. This has been very difficult. I don’t even have enough money to be able to travel to Saudi Arabia to see him,” she said.

“I don’t have anything against the Saudi government. I just want to see my husband again.”

The case has been covered extensively by local media.

According to Arab News, an English language Saudi daily newspaper, after the most recent verdict was issued, the judges in Medina issued a statement expressing that Sibat deserved to be executed for having continually practiced black magic on his show, adding that this sentence would deter others from practicing sorcery.

Arab News reports that the case will now return to the appeals court in Mecca.

Saudi religious police ban pet cats and dogs

 God hates dogs and cats. He especially hates you and I. I wonder when God will ban eyeballs, you know, we can’t have people looking at each other, it simply leads to promiscuity.

Saudi religious police ban pet cats and dogs

RIYADH (AFP) – Saudi Arabia’s religious police have announced a ban on selling cats and dogs as pets, or walking them in public in the Saudi capital, because of men using them as a means of making passes at women, an official said on Wednesday.

Othman al-Othman, head of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice in Riyadh, known as the Muttawa, told the Saudi edition of al-Hayat daily that the commission has started enforcing an old religious edict.

He said the commission was implementing a decision taken a month ago by the acting governor of the capital, Prince Sattam bin Abdul Aziz, adding that it follows an old edict issued by the supreme council of Saudi scholars.

The reason behind reinforcing the edict now was a rising fashion among some men using pets in public “to make passes on women and disturb families,” he said, without giving more details.

Othman said that the commission has instructed its offices in the capital to tell pet shops “to stop selling cats and dogs”.

The 5,000-strong religious police oversees the adherence to Wahabism — a strict version of Sunni Islam, which also forces women to cover from head to toe when in public, and bans them from driving.